073: Gateway

"Modern human beings no longer listen to God. Modern human beings no longer listen. The first sentence is a theological statement. The second one is proven by, for example, the fact that in spite of all our advanced technology we obviously do not consider it necessary to supply our television sets with a sound system that reflects the technical posibilities...

"Wherever God revealed Himself to human beings, He was heard. He may have appeared as a light, but in order to be understood, His voice had to be heard. 'And God spoke' is a standard sentence in all holy scriptures. The ears are the gateway."

-Joachim-Ernest Berendt, Nada Brahma: The World is Sound

« « little fictions || 03.28.2004 @ 08:51 AM

072: The Invention of Belief

"We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creature, shaped by their hard, defining edges..." (Gene Wolfe from The Shadow of the Torturer)

A comment which reflects Jung's concept of the collective unconsciousness, Huxley's commentary during his mescaline experience of the existence of the Not-Self reality of objects, and Plato's concept of the Ideal Form. God is in the details, we say, but aren't the details just symbols?

Okay, I may be stretching on the last one, but the idea started in my head by Travis in the thread comments over at opi8 is that we don't invent anything, we rediscover through a process of remembering what is already there.

Which, as an aside, reminds me of a thought experiment about the commingling of genetic theory and the existence of Adam and Eve. Now, if we accept the possibility of genetic drift brought about by mutation and you accept that the eating of the apple as First Sin, then it follows that this was the introduction of a mutation into the system which, through the generations which follow, gradually decayed the human DNA. Now, I'm not bringing this up as an argument for racial purity or some such thing, but as an observation of an abstract system. If your system is pure, then it won't develop anomalies. Since we, as human beings, have anomalies (birth defects and what not), then we can conclude that our genetic makeup isn't as rarified as it once was. And, purely as a thought experiment as to the makeup of our mental and physiological states, how like we've become the runt children of Adam and Eve. How less "human" are we?

Now, I'm a child of evolutionary theory and the use of Christian theory of our existence is simply a useful tool to concretualize the discussion of a single point of creation. What I'm circling throughout these observations is the idea that there is some underlying unity to the human experience which supersedes the regionalisms and culturalisms which make us think others are different or of a lesser quality than ourselves. Beneath all the distinctions is a unified system of symbols -- of Ideas -- and it is our ability to touch this abstract (or truly Real) system which makes us human.

And, as we become more and more the stunted runt of the litter through our perseverence in a course of forgetting and denial, are we becoming less human and more animals that happen to walk upright and put on fancy dresses for parties?

« « little fictions || 03.17.2004 @ 11:35 PM

071: The Great Work

There are aspects of Gematria which fascinate me --- well, aspects of any attempt to reduce our comprehended breadth of knowledge down to a single luminous moment is fascinating, when you get right down to it -- and the effort to reduce language to a series of inter-related numeric sequences is one of my favorites. Now, a proper technique of Gematria -- the art of reducing words and phrases into numeric values -- really requires a knowledge of Hebrew because the art is based on the idea that one is attempting to pierce the veil of mystery surrounding God's words which have been set down since antiquity and since God's words were transcribed in Hebrew (and I'm only really talking about the Torah here, anyway), performing gematric valuations on sentences and words in any language other than Hebrew is already removing yourself one step from your solution.

However, the basic idea is this: distillation. It's the alchemical Great Work all over again: attempting to distill the unpure into a single drop of purity.

[And I'm distracted for a moment by consideration of that phrase "single drop of purity." If you define this as a brief dollop of Godhead, then you can call it a "single drop of God's blood." What about our blood? A single drop from you or I contains enough coded information to recreate the human race. Your DNA stand (which is evident in every cell of your body) identifies your individuality, but it also preserves our identity as a species. How's that for singular purity?]

So, distillation. The argument follows that we would recognize a more pure state, we can distinguish between more and less pure (and I use these terms instead of "simple" and "complex" because I don't think it follows that "more pure" is necessarily "less complex" -- it's that DNA thing again). And "recognize" may be the wrong term; we are "cognizant of" greater purity, we understand the possibility of greater purity. We "know" greater purity.

What I've been circling for a few weeks is the idea of a single core language, a pre-Babel lingua franca that was universally understood and known by all mankind. God's own tongue, if you will. Some will say -- and there may even be a quote by Einstein or some other historical scientific luminary to this effect -- that mathematics is the pure form of language.

« « little fictions || 03.05.2004 @ 06:02 PM

070: Gathering The Pieces

My editor at Opi8 pointed out in a comment to the 69th SYMBOLIC entry that a chapter in Aleister Crowley's Book of Lies is subtitled: "The way to succeed -- and the way to suck eggs." Now, Ministry's Psalm 69 record has been a favorite of mine for years and I never made the connection between the symbols on the sleeve (and the quote which seals "Psalm 69"), and Crowley's Book of Lies which only serves to accentuate the point for me that all understanding of the world is a matter of your own knowledge. The picture makes sense if you have all the pieces. So, with that aphorism in mind, I go to gather some more pieces.

Crowley's Book of Lies: "This Interchange, the Double Gift of Tongues, the Word of Double Power -- ABRAHADABRA! -- is the sign of the GREAT WORK, for the GREAT WORK is accomplished in Silence. And behold is not that Word equal to Cheth, that is Cancer, whose sigil is...? This Work also eats up itself, accomplishes its own end, nourishes the worker, leaves no seed, is perfect in itself. Little children, love one another!"

The Great Work is the ultimate goal of all magicians and alchemists: the transmutation of dross into gold. While some remained slave to the physical realization of this goal (turning lead into gold -- which, by the way, was the name of a Ministry side-project just to keep track of all these things), others applied this effort to their spiritual selves, seeking to venture beyond their mean flesh and blood existences into purified realms of spiritual and mental enlightenment.

The sigil of Cancer, as mentioned before, is a sideways "69," an Ouroborean birth death life cycle. The more we learn, the more we can nourish ourselves, begatting a self-perpetuating creation which becomes fully self-realized. And, if you have all knowledge, can you not comprehend the totality of all and, in doing so, finally know yourself?

Crowley's Liber 777: "The five letters used in the word are A, the crown; B, the wand; D, the cup; H, the sword; R, the rosy cross; and refer further to Amoun the Father, Thoth His messener, and Isis, Horus, Osis the human-divine triad...but always the symbol will remain the Expression of the Goal and the Exposition of the Path."

« « little fictions || 03.03.2004 @ 06:01 PM

069: 69

Of course, the first thing that comes to mind with this number for any child who attaches themselves to Beavis and/or Butthead is obvious. But, if you pick a font with some flourish or squint just right, it starts to become the ying/yan or even the astrological symbol for Cancer.

There was an email that spammed its way through the inbox recently that included a picture of a couple fucking. Or, at least, that is what I saw. My son, or any innocent for that matter, would see dolphins if he looked at the picture. And, sure if I squinted just right and disengaged my libido, I could see the porpoises playing. But, not surprisingly, I had to be told to look for them before they made themselves visible.

I'm standing at a bus stop in Seattle right now, thumbing this onto my handheld, waiting for the 66 bus. Seattle doesn't have a 69 bus, for the obvious reasons. Some things get marked for all time.

« « little fictions || 03.01.2004 @ 05:58 PM

writing

BIBLIOGRAPHY
This is a reasonably comprehensive list of my published work, both virtual and physical.

THE MISFIT LIBRARY
I am Nine of Thirteen, one of the members of the Misfit Library, a writing collective which puts out a quarterly journal of our respective work. We are scattered across the globe and determined to change the face of the planet one story at a time. The link above will take you to Misfit Central where you can acquire copies of the journal as well as read exclusive online material.

SYMBOLIC
I wrote a column for OPi8.com's Transmit blogs: journals of the new dark underground. SYMBOLIC tracked the novel I was working on, referencing the process and the research materials which mad up the backbone of the work. In addition, SYMBOLIC busied itself with ruminations and considerations on the nature of language and communication. And a wee bit of mythology. The first 100 entries of SYMBOLIC can be found here on this site as well as at OPi8.com.

LITERARY REPRESENTATION
I am represented by Scribe Agency as my literary agents. Please contact these gentleman if you have any queries about my work.

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